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Writer's pictureIsaac Johnson

Building a Real Estate Empire. The 1 million dollar recap.



People always start sharing experiences AFTER they do all the work. They build entire brands around how great at investing they are, and you should pay them for their expertise. And you should! They took the risk, did the work, they should be compensated for the work they put in. But I never see anyone sharing the adventure from the beginning. We live in a world scared to show failure. Social media has trained our brains to think that every deal is the best deal, and every day you have to be working 16 hours and if you don't like it you're not cut out!

Welcome to my life. My name is Isaac and I have been trying to building a real estate empire for about 2 years now. I am not a genius. I got insanely lucky and knew if I failed I could always move in with my parents and go into teaching/coaching football. (Which I have already done once after I failed being a twitch streamer out of college..) A lot of people don't have the fallback options I did if I failed. So I don't want to claim to be a guru or that I started from zero.

Here's what I do claim. I took a gamble. I spent my savings to buy a rental property. And then another. And then another. At the end of 2021 I had acquired 2 single family homes (3 but I was living in 1). And had surpassed what I was making teaching after 1 year of real estate investing.

In 2022, I had to make the decision. Stay at my safe and stable income job. Teaching kids about finances and how to run inside zone against a 3-3 stack. Or get my real estate license and go all in. When my wife and I got engaged in March. I knew I had to make more money if I wanted to start a family. So I took the leap and told my principal I wouldn't be returning. And luckily, it's all paned out so far. That same month I put in my notice, a 4-plex I had been negotiating on since December called me. Their 1031 time was up and they had to sell right then or pay the gains tax. List price: 850k. Purchase Price: 770k. Appraised value. 800k. I had been patient and stuck to my numbers, and It payed off big. 30k in equity as soon as I signed the papers. You gotta realize, I was making about 30k after taxes as a teacher. So getting that in an afternoon was eye opening. If I could do 2 of those a year, I would double my annual salary.

After the 4-plex I was out of cash, but I had proven that I was able to find a negotiate great deals. Which is even more powerful. My goal was to acquire 1 million dollars of property in 2022, and I was $230,000 away from my goal with no cash. But my favorite saying, "luck comes to those who put themselves in positions to be lucky". In other words, you have to be ready for lucky situations to work out. If you expect that it won't. It won't.

I passed a storage complex on my way to work everyday. I told my wife "I should call and ask to buy that place" probably 5 times a week. Until I finally did. After some quick negotiations from a motivated seller (another 1031) I got my first storage facility for 280k. And just like that. I hit my 1 million goal in Sept. of 2022. 10 days before my wedding. $1,050,000 on 2 transactions. The equity is split with an investor, so obviously that's not all mine. But pretty close.

This coming year. I plan to do double. Heck, maybe triple if investors aren't too scared of the coming recession. But I will always be open and honest on this journey. My current goals are self storage, and to get my first commercial NNN property. Thanks for taking the time to read. I will post more in depth articles on my experiences as we go. Happy New Year folks. Go get your money.



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